Day 29: A Sprint in Bütgenbach

Today I did my first Sprint Triathlon. In Belgium. And I had little to no idea what was going on the majority of the time.

The weather was accommodating for a triathlon today. It was considerably cooler than it has been, but humid, foggy, and sprinkling lightly most of the day.

---

My notes from before and after the race:

People start rolling up in Ironman swag. I am sitting soaking wet on a bench out of the way. No one appears to be heading over to the race package pickup area with their bike. I have all my gear here already. I guess I’ll just lock it up and then walk over. Starting to get mildly concerned whether or not this is an event I should have signed up for.

I have purchased a flimsy little plastic tub from Carrefour because when I finally decided to translate the instructions this morning they said plastic containers only (no bags) for the transition area.

---

Well I have checked in, gotten my race package, and had 2017 written in sharpie down my arm. I’ve changed into my spandex and am back by my bike. I have no idea where to go or what to do.

No one seems to be moving toward the “transition zone” aka no one really has their bikes out and such. There are many people by their cars with bikes strapped to the back and all their gear in their trunks. Are we meant to just go home and chill for an hour or something before we go set up? I’m so confused.

---

Before the start other people were going into the lake and testing the water / swimming.

I did and swam a bit. Glad I did that to warm up. I think the shock would have been too much had I not.

The swim was hard.

I am not used to open water swimming in race situations. I haven’t been training. I am in decent enough shape from a cardio standpoint, but experience and mileage in the water I just do not have.

Honestly, after I was only part way done the first lap I didn’t think I could do it. I would sporadically head off in the wrong direction (how come I can’t swim straight?), I popped my head up to realign myself now and then but gasped a bit of water and was sputtering for a while so it took me time to control my breathing again. I went in and out of a sort of huffed thrashing and that is certainly the last thing you want when you are in the water.

By the time I made it to shore and had to get out and run around a post – how thankful I was to be on land again – I was questioning whether I should continue for the second lap. But I did. My goggles got inundated on the last leg of the first lap so I had to deal with that, and I just took it slow getting back in the water.

The second lap was arguably much better. I was calm, cool and collected and better at directing myself. Additionally, I knew I wasn’t last out of the women and that buoyed my confidence a bit. Isn’t it a horrible aspect of human nature that we take joy in the fact that there are others who are worse at something than we are?

I got slightly concerned when I saw the men’s heat approaching hard and fast from behind. I was mildly worried I was going to get swum on top of. At least I got the true triathlon experience. Limbs flying everywhere and thrashing. It was kind of awesome.

Holy shit, I had made the swim. I was so proud of myself for doing it, the rest of the race didn’t even matter. My transition was slow because I got called out for not wearing the same thing for the swim as for the rest. I only got a warning, thank goodness. The “I only speak English,” card is helping me out.

The cycle was tough but I think I made up a lot of time there. I thought it was 21.8 km and I figured I had maybe missed part of it at the end because according to my Swatch watch it appeared I had done it pretty fast (it was actually 18.7 km).

The run was fine and actually quite fun / not what I expected. Part was in the forest on a little one-track path. The rest on the bike route. I felt neither here nor there about it, really. I wasn’t pushing too hard because I didn’t want to burn out.

At a certain point, I was like kayyyyy, where do we turn around already. Then, the finish. Dear god, of all the evil plans in the world this finish line takes it. They had an uphill winding snake of gates to get to the finish. So, you came off the trail thinking you were essentially done but really had to wind up and down and up again for a couple hundred meters. Pure. Evil. Needless to say, I don’t think it made for a very good photo finish of me.

And then I crossed the finish line and I didn’t vomit when I stopped! Not even any dry heaves. This might mean I wasn’t pressing hard enough on the run, but also, not having to spew after a race is nice too.

---

After the race, I loitered around the tennis hall where they held the awards ceremony and served food and drink. The Belgian waffles were an amazing post-race snack!

Tomorrow I am off to Aachen, Germany. I am hoping that all of my gear will be dry by then.

DOTD

Big boy celebrating with his humans after the triathlon!